Ask HN: What's your favorite “forgotten” technology / software?
53 comments
Usenet in the Internet early days when the net was not filled with spam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
IRC before Slack took off. IRC a standardized chat protocol, there is not chat islands.
Gopher, the text version of meta browsable Internet before World wide web. You could navigate gopher with just a keyboard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29
BBS Bulletin Board systems there were local computer communities formed around them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
IRC before Slack took off. IRC a standardized chat protocol, there is not chat islands.
Gopher, the text version of meta browsable Internet before World wide web. You could navigate gopher with just a keyboard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29
BBS Bulletin Board systems there were local computer communities formed around them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
gopher is not dead
and it has evolved into the gemini protocol
https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
BBS are alive and well in the communities of the tildeverse https://tildeverse.org/
BBS are alive and well in the communities of the tildeverse https://tildeverse.org/
More like evolved, the Pubnix/SDF guys took it and it created something similar but privacy being mandatory with SSL.
On BBS', ssh/telnet synchro.net or gopher cvs.synchro.net.
People is alive and posting well. Ditto with usenet.
On BBS', ssh/telnet synchro.net or gopher cvs.synchro.net.
People is alive and posting well. Ditto with usenet.
Usenet was great. A distributed database with varied and robust communications links and sophisticated replication and de-duplication features; long before anyone thought to see it that way. Persistent compression dictionaries, indexes, and query passing could have happened too.
They are all still exist, although not used as much as it should be in my opinion. There is Usenet spam today, although in my experience, most of it comes from Google Groups (although there are good messages from Google Groups too); I have not seen spam coming from other servers (there probably used to be a lot more from other servers, I suppose).
I still write all my projects in Pascal
Memory safety has become a modern buzzword, but Pascal had memory safe strings and arrays decades ago, based on automated reference counting. Now it also has other types that are not memory safe, but you do not have to use them. Everything would be much safer if all the C code was replaced by Pascal code. And Pascal is compiled to native code without GC, so it is also very fast
And XPath. It is the best language to map and filter data. It felt out of favor with XML, but it can be used on all data, HTML, CSV, JSON, Plaintext, ...
Memory safety has become a modern buzzword, but Pascal had memory safe strings and arrays decades ago, based on automated reference counting. Now it also has other types that are not memory safe, but you do not have to use them. Everything would be much safer if all the C code was replaced by Pascal code. And Pascal is compiled to native code without GC, so it is also very fast
And XPath. It is the best language to map and filter data. It felt out of favor with XML, but it can be used on all data, HTML, CSV, JSON, Plaintext, ...
People talk about Lisp and Delphi not really being used anymore in the mainstream. Smalltalk as well, especially when it has the ability to have the entire program running and suspended on disk for analysis. That is not available in any modern language if I recall correctly.
Old-school server-side-rendered HTML. It's sufficient for the majority of websites and CRUD apps and is so much simpler to develop for with less moving parts and failure modes.
This works for simple stuff, but once you find yourself making complicated forms and managing a lot of state on the front-end... two-way binding and reactivity from a js framework can keep things from becoming a huge mess.
That is what I am still doing in 2020, :)
Java Spring/JSF and ASP.NET for the win.
Java Spring/JSF and ASP.NET for the win.
The problem is convincing clients that this is the best solution for their problem. I've seen way too many cases where clients wanted (or already had) an overengineered frontend despite the project requirements not warranting it and wasting more time on bullshit such as frontend/backend communication/authentication or build environments than actually implementing functionality.
On the Fortune 500 world that is hardly a problem, Java and .NET backends rule.
Then when doing solo projects, most clients only ask for a site, they have no idea of what they actually want, technically speaking, secret is too deliver something that makes them and their customers happy.
Doing stuff for industries whose main business is not selling software is very eye opening.
Then when doing solo projects, most clients only ask for a site, they have no idea of what they actually want, technically speaking, secret is too deliver something that makes them and their customers happy.
Doing stuff for industries whose main business is not selling software is very eye opening.
Rails 6 with turbolinks and stimulus-reflex allows building reactive apps with server side tech. In Ruby.
Mesa/Cedar, Lisp Machines, Oberon and Active Oberon, Amiga, Atari ST, BeOS, Smalltalk, Clipper 5.x, GUI RAD (VB, Delphi, C++ Builder).
Some of those did make into mainstream, but current generations have lost that phase.
Some of those did make into mainstream, but current generations have lost that phase.
Oberon is alive in Acme/9front. Amiga/Atari are zombies, BeOS lives in Haiku, Smalltalk has Pharo and some C-named project for purists. Delphi is still usable under lazarus.
I'm obsessed with MUDs. There's still a robust MUD community out there, but most people have never heard of them. I'm currently building one from scratch in Go. Fun times.
I also miss the good ol' BBS days. I know there's some BBS communities out there, but it doesn't feel the same without dialup. I also spent some time this summer writing Solar Realms Elite from scratch as well. I didn't finish it, but I got a decent engine going.
Speaking of BBSes, there was a networking protocol back then known as FidoNet which allowed BBSes to communicate and share information. In my more bored moments I've considered trying to find the spec and build some modern FidoNet clients/servers or whatever it is.
Short version: I really love the old text-based (ASCII ftw) internet days, and I think about that tech a lot.
I also miss the good ol' BBS days. I know there's some BBS communities out there, but it doesn't feel the same without dialup. I also spent some time this summer writing Solar Realms Elite from scratch as well. I didn't finish it, but I got a decent engine going.
Speaking of BBSes, there was a networking protocol back then known as FidoNet which allowed BBSes to communicate and share information. In my more bored moments I've considered trying to find the spec and build some modern FidoNet clients/servers or whatever it is.
Short version: I really love the old text-based (ASCII ftw) internet days, and I think about that tech a lot.
>Speaking of BBSes, there was a networking protocol back then known as FidoNet which allowed BBSes to communicate and share information.
Telnet or SSH synchro.net, still alive.
On MUDs, the Cybersphere MOO is nice, but as a non-native English speaker, emoting is hard.
I'd like it more if emoting/posing was not enforced.
Telnet or SSH synchro.net, still alive.
On MUDs, the Cybersphere MOO is nice, but as a non-native English speaker, emoting is hard.
I'd like it more if emoting/posing was not enforced.
Visual Basic was awesome. I was making simple shooting games and card games as a teenager with minimal understanding of any programming at all. They felt like real, robust, desktop apps. You could drag and drop UI components and very easily add functionality.
I'm fond of my early development tools: Hypercard, Resedit, Think Pascal, MacsBug... It gives me rainbows whenever I think about it, no matter how grey my developer life currently is.
And not a mention of CP/M, the 8-bit Disk Operating System that was ubiquitous till about 1985.
I still use it, but with a Z80 emulator on a 64-bit machine. One of my emulators if rendered in the real hardware of the era would have cost somewhere around 40-50 thousand dollars. These days it's merely about 140 megabytes of data tucked away in a directory
I still use it, but with a Z80 emulator on a 64-bit machine. One of my emulators if rendered in the real hardware of the era would have cost somewhere around 40-50 thousand dollars. These days it's merely about 140 megabytes of data tucked away in a directory
> 140 megabytes of data tucked away in a directory
Wut, the Altair/Simh fork it's less than 10MB, 30 with CPM 2.2 and some working software/games.
Wut, the Altair/Simh fork it's less than 10MB, 30 with CPM 2.2 and some working software/games.
Film photography.
People still use film but it is no longer ubiquitous. There are people in the world approaching adulthood who likely never experienced what it was like to take a picture and wait hours or days to find out if it turned out. There is something unique about film that goes beyond the image itself. It is an entire experience from taking a photo to waiting to get the photo processed and printed. The experience is what makes the image special.
One thing I really dislike about digital is the churn of the technology. Every year new sensors are released and the old ones become obsolete and eventually useless. I have film cameras older than me and some even older than my parents that are still capable of creating great images. Digital cameras are not likely to enjoy a second life like this. I appreciate digital photography for its utility but for me film will always be "real" photography and it will always be better.
People still use film but it is no longer ubiquitous. There are people in the world approaching adulthood who likely never experienced what it was like to take a picture and wait hours or days to find out if it turned out. There is something unique about film that goes beyond the image itself. It is an entire experience from taking a photo to waiting to get the photo processed and printed. The experience is what makes the image special.
One thing I really dislike about digital is the churn of the technology. Every year new sensors are released and the old ones become obsolete and eventually useless. I have film cameras older than me and some even older than my parents that are still capable of creating great images. Digital cameras are not likely to enjoy a second life like this. I appreciate digital photography for its utility but for me film will always be "real" photography and it will always be better.
I wanted to get into photography last year and bought an old Canon AE-1 off eBay as a cheap entry point. I had so much fun I ended up spending about as much on lenses and film/film development than I would have if I had bought an entry-level DSLR.
I’ve since bought an entry-level DSLR but the AE-1 keeps drawing me back. There is something really neat about the whole process and anticipation of seeing the developed film. Not to mention the old cameras just look and feel cool and the photos have a vintage-like texture that is really unique.
I’ve since bought an entry-level DSLR but the AE-1 keeps drawing me back. There is something really neat about the whole process and anticipation of seeing the developed film. Not to mention the old cameras just look and feel cool and the photos have a vintage-like texture that is really unique.
I’ve been fascinated with Trinary computing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer
one of the things it is perplexing to me never caught on.
Borland Paradox for DOS 4.5 (build full data-driven desktop applications, from form designer to relational database to reporting).
4DOS/4NT (a command-line enhancer which really made DOS/Windows CMD.EXE really productive. I use cmder these days but still miss the 4DOS/4NT level productivity).
4DOS/4NT (a command-line enhancer which really made DOS/Windows CMD.EXE really productive. I use cmder these days but still miss the 4DOS/4NT level productivity).
SuperMemo, the spaced repetition software for learning that's the equivalent of photoshop in that space compared to the more popular Anki that's more akin to MS Paint.
If only SuperMemo were cross-platform. My understanding is that the web version (the only cross-platform option, with app support on mobile devices) is not really equivalent to the desktop version (it's more equivalent to Memrise or Anki, lacks the incremental reading and other features).
And that was a non-option when Anki was created many years ago. At least Anki has plugins, though, which let you add quite a few capabilities to it bringing it more in line with SuperMemo.
And that was a non-option when Anki was created many years ago. At least Anki has plugins, though, which let you add quite a few capabilities to it bringing it more in line with SuperMemo.
While not cross-platform (meaning that there is special preparation needed to run it outside Windows), it is possible to run SuperMemo for Windows (desktop-only) on macOS and Linux via Wine. The Winetricks verb I used[1] works for Linux and used to work unmodified for macOS until (I think) Mojave. In the next days an updated version, with more features, will be packaged for Lutris[2] (which for now, remains in testing phase), making it easier to install on Linux. Since Catalina's removal of 32bit support I have stopped tracking the macOS situation, but I believe it is still possible to run depending on whose patched Wine package you pick up for the task. I hope to try again once I can run a Catalina VM or a kind person is willing to lend me remote desktop minutes.
[1]: https://github.com/alessivs/supermemo-wine
[2]: https://lutris.net/
Failing that, there's obviously virtualization.
> Anki has plugins...
I could dive and swim in the sea of Anki plugins. Though if you look closer, while activity around the extension ecosystem is vibrant, there is something more fundamental in the core of Anki that is producing excessive workloads, and making it generally not up to the demands of a large and varied body of knowledge and vehement use.
One example is the recommendation that a whole body of study is split into separate decks–which, I assume, seeks to avoid biasing scheduling towards that required by the more representative portion of material present in reviews. But you are equipped with one brain and live by a single time line, taking frequent local decisions regarding learning material which have global implications for your performance. When you split your study material into separate units of analysis, these details are too easy to ignore.
In contrast, SuperMemo's algorithms play well with (it is the recommendation, actually:) throwing everything into a single collection (deck)–items of knowledge which you can optionally prioritize individually or in groups–such that the global implications of your local choices are accounted for, maintaining the forgetting index premise, and gracefully adapting workloads to your capacity.
Instead of improving the core functionality in this direction, Anki community's response has been to give you more knobs (scheduler this, scheduler that, load balancer gobbledygook) around essentially the same historical limitations.
[1]: https://github.com/alessivs/supermemo-wine
[2]: https://lutris.net/
Failing that, there's obviously virtualization.
> Anki has plugins...
I could dive and swim in the sea of Anki plugins. Though if you look closer, while activity around the extension ecosystem is vibrant, there is something more fundamental in the core of Anki that is producing excessive workloads, and making it generally not up to the demands of a large and varied body of knowledge and vehement use.
One example is the recommendation that a whole body of study is split into separate decks–which, I assume, seeks to avoid biasing scheduling towards that required by the more representative portion of material present in reviews. But you are equipped with one brain and live by a single time line, taking frequent local decisions regarding learning material which have global implications for your performance. When you split your study material into separate units of analysis, these details are too easy to ignore.
In contrast, SuperMemo's algorithms play well with (it is the recommendation, actually:) throwing everything into a single collection (deck)–items of knowledge which you can optionally prioritize individually or in groups–such that the global implications of your local choices are accounted for, maintaining the forgetting index premise, and gracefully adapting workloads to your capacity.
Instead of improving the core functionality in this direction, Anki community's response has been to give you more knobs (scheduler this, scheduler that, load balancer gobbledygook) around essentially the same historical limitations.
Hotline [1] the precursor to Gnutella and Kazaa. Chat, message board, file transfer client / server software ahead of its time. While not peer-to-peer, it's easy to navigate and use user interface was superior.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Communications
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Communications
Get NicotinePlus. Chat and P2P transfers.
EDIT: so, not peer to peer.
Any advanced Jabber client does that.
EDIT: so, not peer to peer.
Any advanced Jabber client does that.
I still miss my MusicMatch Jukebox - the paid version, before yahoo took it and ruined it.. I paid for 7.1 I think - then yahoo forced an upgrade - ruined it imho - and thier tech support said the only way to get back my old version that I had paid for was to do some registry hacks..
And whichever tech had the good visualizations back then - it might have been windows media player - or maybe winamp - but there was a plugin that actually had visualizations that changed in different ways with the beat and sometimes other parts of the various frequencies.
Not sure this is my favorite forgotten tech, but first to mind.
Seems computers / programs / OS's have needed so many updates and the time it takes - it's really ruined what use to be more fun imho.
Wish I kept all mu c-64 floppies - archon, jumpman jr, little computer people, MULE..
I do want minidiscs back - a new blue ray type version with backwards compat would be nice.
Im going to think of more I'm sure. Oh how progress ruins things.
And whichever tech had the good visualizations back then - it might have been windows media player - or maybe winamp - but there was a plugin that actually had visualizations that changed in different ways with the beat and sometimes other parts of the various frequencies.
Not sure this is my favorite forgotten tech, but first to mind.
Seems computers / programs / OS's have needed so many updates and the time it takes - it's really ruined what use to be more fun imho.
Wish I kept all mu c-64 floppies - archon, jumpman jr, little computer people, MULE..
I do want minidiscs back - a new blue ray type version with backwards compat would be nice.
Im going to think of more I'm sure. Oh how progress ruins things.
Allaire’s Coldfusion web server and language which existed before .Net existed. Allaire did everyone a disservice when they sold themselves to Macronedia which was then bought by Adobe. At the time, Coldfusion was years ahead of what would become asp.net. I wished they sold or licensed themselves to Microsoft.
Winamp visualisations. Spent a lot of hours in front of that app a couple of decades back.
I'm sure there's better stuff somewhere out there nowadays, but my music consumption has simply moved away anyway - period on iTunes/Google Music, now only ever streaming random stuff on-demand from Spotify.
I'm sure there's better stuff somewhere out there nowadays, but my music consumption has simply moved away anyway - period on iTunes/Google Music, now only ever streaming random stuff on-demand from Spotify.
In particular lpmud was fun because when you reached level 20, you were given a room of your own and could expand the game from there.
Oh yeah, the MOOs are fascinating too, the ability to "dig" new rooms and create new things in an object oriented environment similar to Smalltalk!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LambdaMOO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOO_(programming_language)
http://aaactive.com/ygm/ygmpdf/ygm.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LambdaMOO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOO_(programming_language)
http://aaactive.com/ygm/ygmpdf/ygm.pdf
Delphi and Visual Basic. Creating applications by dragging some buttons onto a grid, and double-clicking to add code to them, was such a better developer experience than what we have now. Sadly such tools didn't translate to the complexities of the web...
Turbo C/C++ with its blue background DOS editor.
TCL/Tk, expect.
Perl though I don’t think I miss it much.
TCL/Tk, expect.
Perl though I don’t think I miss it much.
>TCL/Tk, expect.
Still alive
Turbo C/C++ with its blue background DOS editor.
A Borland colorscheme is available at github https://github.com/mbadolato/iTerm2-Color-Schemes
Still alive
Turbo C/C++ with its blue background DOS editor.
A Borland colorscheme is available at github https://github.com/mbadolato/iTerm2-Color-Schemes
The Free Pascal compiler ships ships with a Turbo* like IDE. I haven't really used it much though.
Norton Your Eyes Only. Early desktop encryption software for Windows 3.1. Also, Menuworks for DOS. Graphical User Interface which was editable for personal or corporate use.
TI calculators, a mechanical pencil with a good eraser, and a notebook. It really let's me focus on the engineering and not the tools.
I still use a TI-92 calculator, and I often work on paper. Probably many people still work on paper.
Which TI calculators did you mean specifically?
Which TI calculators did you mean specifically?
[deleted]
I love Zip and Jazz drives/disks
XyWrite, WordStar (word processing)
Forth, Tcl/Tk programming
ARCNET token-bus networking
Wire-wrap technique for electronic circuit boards
Forth, Tcl/Tk programming
ARCNET token-bus networking
Wire-wrap technique for electronic circuit boards
I miss themes in Windows. I guess windows 98 had them and it was awesome
[deleted]
Finding out more about not-so-mainstream tech is one of the main reasons I read HN. And I see once in a while some "forgotten" tech mentioned, from where it seems the current state of art is a step back.
What's your favourite software / technology / tools that were better but couldn't make into mainstream?